It is literally impossible to produce a consistent result in a business that depends on extraordinary people.

Hope is a function of struggle. If we want our children to develop high levels of hopefulness, we have to let them struggle.

Every leader must be ready and willing to take charge, to make hard, crucial calls for the good of the team and the mission. That is inherent in the very term “leader.” But leaders must also have the ability to follow. This was a difficult dichotomy: in order to be a good leader, you must also be a good follower. Finding that balance is key.

The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build—the thing customers want and will pay for —as quickly as possible.

The fundamental issue in resolving traumatic stress is to restore the proper balance between the rational and emotional brains.

The importance of a strong founding team: Thiel believes that the founding team is crucial to the success of a startup. He advises entrepreneurs to carefully select co-founders who complement their skills and share their vision, as building a successful company is a challenging and long-term endeavor.

Your intuition will almost never seem logical or rational, but that’s exactly what we want because we don’t want it to be predictable.

“Give it a try – and quick!”: When in doubt, doing an experiment, or trying something new, don’t stop. Do something, make mistakes, fix them – but don’t stand still.

How to build company culture? First of all, mutual trust, transparency in the law, employees need to know what you expect from them and vice versa what they expect.

I do not think that this [the universe] can be explained only by natural causes, and are forced to impute to the wisdom and ingenuity of an intelligent.